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*3rd Pov
The car rolled to a stop in the driveway, Mary shut off the engine, and the doors swung open one by one as everyone climbed out, Georgie stretching his arms after the long ride from Houston, Missy already scanning the yard like she owned the place, and Veronica brushing her hair back from the breeze.
They'd barely made it up the porch steps when Georgie felt a firm thump on his shoulder. He turned, finding George Sr. standing there with a grin that could only mean trouble.
Georgie didn't know what his dad was so pleased about… but the black smudges of grease on George Sr.'s hands were a bad sign.
Without warning, his dad gave his shoulder another friendly-but-devious pat, "Help me out here," George Sr. said, already steering Georgie toward the side of the house before he could even protest.
Georgie looked over his shoulder at Mary and Veronica, silently begging for backup. They just chuckled, clearly happy to watch whatever "father-son project" was about to happen.
"Here, I'll put your bag and jacket in your room," Veronica said, taking them from him and disappearing down the hallway.
"Mary, could you make some orange juice for us? Thank you." George Sr. called over his shoulder, earning nothing but a pair of amused headshakes from Mary and Veronica.
Then Georgie saw it.
His dad's old motorcycle, half-disassembled, sat in the outside of the garage, surrounded by tools scattered across the floor. A dark pool of oil stained the concrete beside it.
"Oh, come on! I just got home, Dad…" Georgie groaned.
"Hey, hey,....you're the one who said we should fix this bike. Well… it's fixing time!" George Sr. said, giving him that look like this was some big favor.
"Yeah, and when I said that, I meant take it to a shop, not tear it apart in here!" Georgie sighed, walking toward the mess.
"No way. Why spend money when I can fix it myself?....." George Sr. replied, though the longer he talked, the quieter his voice got, as if his confidence was leaking out with every word.
Georgie stared at him, unimpressed. Then he let out a deep sigh. "Alright… let's see what we've got here."
He pulled off his jacket and tossed it aside, stripping down to his undershirt before shooting a look at George Sr., "Where's Sheldon? We need his brain for this kind of stuff," Georgie said.
George Sr. snorted, fully aware of his other son's aversion to grime and, as he liked to put it, 'germs.'
"If he were here, he'd have already run a mile from this crime scene," George Sr. replied.
The truth was, he'd hoped for some bonding time with his kids, especially Sheldon. But George Sr. had no idea what actually interested his middle son. He wasn't into baseball, football, or even soccer like other boys his age.
But he did like Georgie.
Maybe Georgie could "convince" Sheldon to join in, whether he wanted to or not. But Still, fixing a motorcycle probably wasn't the best idea for a father-son bonding session with Sheldon, so George Sr. pushed that thought out of his head.
"Nah, he'd just keep his distance and yell instructions at us," Georgie said, glancing over the exposed guts of the Harley. "...But I'm not even sure if he knows a thing about engines."
George Sr. thought for a moment, "I think I've got a book about this somewhere on the shelf… no idea if he's ever read it," he said.
"Oh, that's good then. I know he gets bored sometimes and reads whatever he can get his hands on, even stuff he thinks is useless," Georgie replied before turning back to the bike. "This is a Harley-Davidson Shovelhead… and there's a lot that can go wrong with these. Oil leaks, overheating, high oil consumption, unstable electrics…"
He leaned closer, eyes scanning the open engine like a doctor assessing a patient in critical condition. "Well… first thing's first," he muttered, tapping a greasy finger against the block, "....your oil leak's not just a leak, it's a full-on evacuation."
George Sr. frowned. "Evacuation?"
"Yeah," Georgie sighed, pointing to the dark stains under the bike. "Looks like the gaskets are shot. And your oil filter's about as useful as a screen door on a submarine."
George Sr. shifted uncomfortably, but Georgie kept going "Overheating too," he added, spotting discoloration on the head. "This baby's been running hot for a while… probably from those clogged fins and bad airflow."
He reached into the mess of wires, giving one a light tug. It came loose with zero resistance.
"And here's your electrical problem, loose connections, corroded terminals. No wonder this thing's coughing every time you start it."
George Sr. gave a sheepish grin. "I told you, I'm a terrible mechanic."
"Yeah," Georgie smirked, "but luckily for you… I'm only slightly better."
On the other side of the backyard, under the shade of the patio, Mary and Veronica sat at the table, each with a glass of cold orange juice in hand.
From her seat, Veronica couldn't take her eyes off Georgie. His arm flexing as he turned the wrench, veins showing, a light sheen of sweat sliding slowly from his shoulder down his arm. She leaned toward Mary with a smirk and whispered, "…I call dibs on the long hair."
Mary narrowed her eyes at her, returning the smirk. "…You're keeping the good one for yourself!" she whispered back in a teasing tone, before leaning in slightly closer. "…But I've already seen him naked before."
Veronica froze, her eyes going wide. She was this close to firing back that she had too, but her brain slammed the brakes.
She was talking to the mother of the guy with the long hair. No way that was coming out of her mouth.
So she just turned back and quietly kept watching him.
Of course, Georgie heard them.
And the second Mary's words registered, his grip slipped—clank! the wrench hit the ground.
George Sr., crouched on the other side of the bike, glanced over. "You okay there, champ?"
"…Yeah," Georgie replied quickly, picking up the wrench. His cheeks burned red, and he pretended to focus hard on the engine again.
Mary chuckled quietly to herself, she knew her kids had their own God-given quirks. Just like Sheldon, with his Vulcan hearing.
"What's up?" Missy appeared, eyeing everyone and their separate activities.
"Nothing much," Mary replied, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. "Did you finish your homework?"
Missy shook her head. "I was gonna ask Brother to help me."
Mary immediately shook her head. "No, you must do your homework yourself."
Missy let out a dramatic sighed before stomping away. Mary snorted at the sight, but she had twins, and with one gone, the other inevitably showed up.
"…Mom, what's for dinner?" Sheldon appeared next, still wearing his gloves and boots. He clearly had no intention of stepping inside the house yet, choosing instead to come through the backyard so he could drop off his gloves and boots in the garage.
"Did you get your rocks, Shelly?" Mary asked, glancing behind him.
Sheldon looked at his mother with a deadpan gaze and a tired expression. "…It's not just a 'rock,' Mom, it's Tektites. And yes, we found it and we gave it to Libby."
Mary nodded, a slight frown forming on her brow at the mention of Libby's name.
"…Are you looking for Libby?" Veronica asked with a chuckle in Mary's direction.
"No," Mary said flatly, shooting Veronica a playful glare. She turned back to Sheldon with a smile. "What do you want, Shelly?" She was clearly relieved to see he wasn't accompanied by Libby.
Before Sheldon could answer, Georgie's voice cut in. "Sheldon! Come here for a sec!" He looked at the gloves on his brother's hands. "Don't take those off, help us first."
Sheldon eyed the two of them, then the oil stains on the ground. He had no desire to get anywhere near that mess. "I don't think so. I'd rather stay out there with Mom and Veronica," he said, shaking his head.
"You don't have to get close," George Sr. assured him, holding up a bundle of wires that were blackened, their copper insulation flaking away. "We just want your opinion."
"…Alright then," Sheldon said after a pause, deciding his dad's request didn't sound like an immediate threat to his safety.
Mary and Veronica both nodded approvingly, and Mary didn't object to Sheldon joining them.
That's when Missy returned, her face grumpy, holding her book.
"I told you it was better to do your homework before we went to Houston," Veronica said with a smirk.
"You didn't want to help me! I thought I could ask Brother!" Missy shot back, grimacing as she opened her book again.
"I'll check your homework later. You'd better do it properly, young lady!" Mary said, narrowing her eyes.
Missy grumbled again but focused on her book, clearly not happy about it.
Georgie glanced at Sheldon, who was crouched a few feet away. "So? How are you, buddy?" he asked, looking back down at a few gears in his hands.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Sheldon replied with a frown. "Unless you've suffered a significant lapse in memory, you already know everything that happened while you were in Houston, since we spoke over the phone several times."
Before Georgie could respond, Sheldon's gaze locked onto the exposed engine.
"You know," he began in that familiar lecture tone, "Harley-Davidson motorcycles from the 1970s, especially the Shovelhead models, are statistically more prone to overheating and oil leaks than most bikes of their era. I came across this in a 1976 factory service manual, a 1979 mechanical engineering textbook, and an article from Motorcyclist magazine that I was reading purely out of boredom."
He pointed at the base of the engine.
"The root cause is usually deteriorating gaskets that fail to contain oil pressure, leading to leaks substantial enough to stain driveways in the exact pattern I see here. Overheating, meanwhile, is often the result of obstructed cooling fins and restricted airflow. Combine those two issues, and the engine oil degrades faster, which in turn exacerbates the leak."
Then his eyes shifted toward the bundle of wires in George Sr.'s hands.
"And, of course, there's the matter of the electrical system, loose connections, corrosion on the terminals, and an insulation design that seems to actively encourage decay. It's a trifecta of poor engineering decisions that would cause starting issues, power loss, and in rare cases, a complete shutdown mid-ride."
Georgie smirked and glanced at Sheldon. "Good job on the observation, but I want to know about the group, Shelly. Anything new?"
He then looked over at George Sr., who was frowning, fully aware by now that he was a terrible mechanic, especially when both of his sons seemed to know more about his bike than he did.
"Oh," Sheldon said, glancing toward Veronica, who was still seated at the backyard table with Mary and Missy. He shook his head at Georgie. "I guess no for that question."
Georgie kept his eyes on the bike, pulling out the filthy, blackened air filter that was clearly beyond saving. "Huh… I think I heard something about 'Mixmax' in Houston?" he said casually, then shot a sideways look at Sheldon with a smirk. "Guess I heard them wrong."
Sheldon's mouth twitched. He looked back toward Veronica, who had quickly averted her gaze and was pretending not to notice him.
"…Yes," Sheldon finally admitted with a sigh. "Libby asked us to see the Space Shuttle movie in IMAX Houston on Sunday." He had planned to tell them all tomorrow, but now the cat was already out of the bag.
Mary gasped, immediately turning to look at Veronica.
"Don't look at me," Veronica said quickly, raising her hands. "I already told them no, because Georgie was coming home and I wanted to spend time with him." She pointed toward Georgie. "I told him, and he said Sheldon should tell his family himself."
Mary shot Georgie a glare, but he ignored it and turned back to Sheldon. "…I heard you touched cleavage before?! How was it?!"
Clank!
This time it was George Sr. who dropped a tool, followed by a chorus of gasps from the women at the table.
Sheldon's face flushed crimson. He swung at Georgie, a blow he thought was hard, but still landed like a child's punch.
"Brother! You know what happened!"
Before Georgie could reply, Missy leaned forward from her seat, eyes wide with mock shock. "Wait… you touched boobs and didn't tell us?!"
"MISSY!" Mary snapped, nearly spilling her orange juice, while Veronica covered her mouth to hide a laugh.
Georgie doubled over laughing, Sheldon turned an even deeper shade of red, "IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!!" before he ran away from them.